


Carlos was never sad

by Saltylocks



Series: Carlos the scientist [5]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cecil is Inhuman, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Disintegration, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Other, POV Carlos (Welcome to Night Vale), Triggers, Young Cecil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 22:05:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1363381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saltylocks/pseuds/Saltylocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil tells Carlos about his childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carlos was never sad

**Author's Note:**

> This can be a trigger to some people so skip this part if you find mental health issues difficult to read about!
> 
> It's just my idea of what Cecil had to go through when he was younger, as my personal head canon. People go through some serious shit sometimes but they come out stronger from it. In the show, Cecil obviously has lived in some weird conditions since he started working at the radio, and this is my idea about what happened. 
> 
> Don't worry, your regular tentacles will come back in the next part.
> 
> And as always, I don't own anything, and I just am having a bit of fun with the characters.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Edit: thanks to letssendacountrysomecupcakes for pointing out my typo's. They are all changed now.

Carlos was puzzled by Cecil.

He was a scientist after all. He wanted to explore everything around him. Carlos aimed to understand. But there was a lot to try and understand about Cecil. 

Cecil was... different. He seemed to be more different than most, even in Night Vale, town of crazy, as Carlos and his team of scientists had aptly named it. After the first time they made love, Carlos had started to wonder about Cecil's past. Cecil had lived in a home with his mother and brother. And for all he knew he had been a normal boy up until that time he had gone to an interview at the station. At some time during that first visit, he had been... altered.

Carlos had lent in close when Cecil's voice faltered and cracked, a sign that he was uncomfortable talking about it. 

“We don't have to talk about it,” Carlos said, “you can tell me when you are ready.”

“Okay,” Cecil said, and then a second later, “I'm ready.”

Nothing was the same after that radio intern interview. It had started with the strange, horrified, looks Cecil had gotten in the corridor, on the streets, just on his way home. When his mother had seen him, she had thrown him out, literally, into the staircase of the apartment building. He had heard her roam around inside their home while he were scrambling to his feet, staring confused at the door to his home. He hadn't noticed anything strange about himself, not until that moment. His brother was inside too, and Cecil could hear how his mother told him to cover the mirrors, that “he” had come back. Cecil had peeked through the mail slot, not sure what to do, but his mother had screamed at him and in the process accidentally touched his hand that was stuck in the postbox. When she did, all Cecil heard was another high noise, as if his mother was in great agony. So he opened the door and went inside. To help. He found his mom on the floor, with empty eyes, rocking back and forth, holding her hand in front of her like it was contaminated. 

“Too late,” she whispered, “too late...”

Cecil backed away as far as possible. If it was his fault he didn't want to cause more harm. His brother came out of the kitchen and just gaped at the scene in front of him. His eyes went big, his face pale, almost gray.

“Cecil,” he whispered, staring at his brother, “what happened? Your eyes, you're so...”

“The eyes of a fallen deity” their mother whispered, “sees everything and never sleeps.”

“What?” Cecil whispered.

“The double faced God should stay slain and dead,” their mother continued, “or He will invoke his rage on all of ussssss...”

Then she seemed to wake up for a second and shuddered. Tears welled up in her eyes. 

“I never wanted you to know any of this. My dear children. I should never had gone out on that field...”

“Mom,” Cecil's brother said, in a brave attempt to hide his panic, and tried to lift her up, “stop with the riddles.”

Their mother's eyes glazed over and she stared at her feet. She pushed her son away and headed stiffly for the bedroom. She locked the door behind her.

“It is too late for us now. Too late for us all,” they could hear her say inside. 

Then the screaming started, for what seemed like an eternity. Sometimes they noticed she had been out for food and water when they slept or were in school, but they never saw her, just heard the screams. Cecil never got to tell her about the internship, and his brother seemed too upset to care. They lived with the screaming, took extra jobs so they could pay the rent. Cecil's brother stayed away more and more, and one day he was gone. The money kept coming in as checks so Cecil knew his brother was around somewhere.

Their mother didn't always scream. Sometimes she came out of her room, her hair over her face, all thin and wrinkly gray skin. She would look at Cecil and sometimes be her old self, gently asking how school were and if he had good grades. He always lied and said they were fine, never mentioning that he worked full time at the station to support them. She nodded and asked if his brother was doing okay. She hadn't seen him around. Cecil said he was out with friends, don't worry about him, he's fine. His mother looked at him and nodded solemnly, no spark left in her body. Cecil would make her a peanut butter sandwich and she would scurry back into her room.  
Those were the good days.

Other times she would open her door and scream at him, call him a vermin and a pest.

“Show yourself!” she would shout, throwing old plates and glasses at him, mostly failing because her hair was in the way. “Let me see your true form!”

Cecil just ducked and hid away those days. He knew what she meant. When he were at the radio station, he could let some of it out. His voice had dropped since he started working there, and a couple of itching abscesses at his back had turned out to be skin pockets where his new appendages just sprouted one day, at first fresh and pink but after a while hardening, scaling and becoming darker. As he played with his new body parts in his room, getting better at controlling them, he thought it all would have been pretty cool if his mother wasn't so mad and his brother had left over it. 

Cecil kept working at the radio, as everyone said he would be the new star there, and because he had nowhere else to go. Cecil had started making his radio programs and everyone said he was unique, that he was extremely talented, that he would go far. As he went through puberty, new stuff kept happening. His scrotum sprouted tendrils, which was unusual, but not that unusual compared to the other things in the burg of Night Vale. His third eye opened on his fifteenth birthday, making him able to see and feel things outside the radio tower and report on it faster. His tentacles became more controllable, he could pick tings up with them now. Because of his abilities he was praised by the Secret Police on more than one occasion and got a Eternal Immunity Card for his sweet sixteen along with his driver's licence. Cecil bought a cake and slid one of the pieces through the food hatch in the door to his mothers room. 

“Happy birthday Cecil!” he said wistfully through the key hole.

“Happy birthday Cecil,” simmered a flat voice through the door, as his mother just imitated now, no longer speaking her own thoughts. 

He had invited some friends from his old school to celebrate with him at the bowling alley, and a lot of them showed up. They liked his show and his new looks, told him the white eyes looked good on him. He drank a bit too much and Teddy Williams had to throw him out...

“Wait, what?” Carlos asked here, interrupting Cecil, who looked up at him. “Teddy Williams? Was he running the bowling alley when you were a kid?”

“Well, yes,” Cecil said, “the Williams have been running the bowling alley for decades. They have a lot of sons, and they all are named Teddy.”

“Teddy? Don't you mean Edward?” Carlos said in a perplexed tone.

“No, just Teddy,” Cecil said, like it was totally normal. “Whatever works for them, you know. They have been there forever.”

“I see,” said Carlos. “Keep telling me about yourself.”

“You know, I think it's getting late,” Cecil said and looked away, “I'm hungry, are you hungry?”

“You said you wanted to tell me,” Carlos reminded him.

“I did, didn't I?” Cecil mumbled. “Well, on my sixteenth birthday, I was walking this beautiful girl home and she was my first intimate experience.”

“Interesting,” Carlos said and smiled. 

“Well, she was nice to me and she wanted me to spawn young with her. She was of an old clan of amphibious creatures from the south side of Night Vale. I remember that I said, 'we could try'.”

“What? You were sixteen!”

“Carlos, I already had a full-time job. Besides, you know how Night Vale is. We grow up fast out here.”

“Yeah, I guess... So, did you?” Carlos teased. “'Spawn young' ?”

“Sure,” Cecil said with a snort. “I'm sure some of my offspring still swims around in a swamp somewhere.”

He saw Carlos' raised eyebrows and grinned.

“No, her parents walked in on us in the middle of it and made quite a fuss, so we stopped seeing each other.”

“Oh, thank the Gods,” Carlos breathed.

They smiled tentatively at each other. Carlos didn't want to ruin the mood, but knew he had to ask. He cleared his throat.

“Cecil, I would like to know, even though it might be hard. What happened to your mother?”

Cecil sighed and his smile disappeared. He rubbed his face in an expression of exhaustion.

“One day when I got home she... just wasn't there anymore,” he said. 

“Oh,” Carlos said.

“Her body was though,” Cecil added.

“Oh,” Carlos said, and then again. “oh. Cecil, I'm so sorry.”

“Yeah.”

Carlos moved closer to Cecil in the bed and put his arms around him. Carlos could feel Cecil's body shivering and a wetness dripping from his cheeks, and he felt himself tear up as well. He whispered comforting sounds to his boyfriend and patted him on the light hair and kissed his brown forehead.

“When she passed, I couldn't live there, so I sold the apartment and moved out here.” 

“Shh,“ Carlos said, “you don't have to explain.”

Cecil sniffled. 

“Please stay,” he said in a small voice. “Everyone just... leaves.”

“Always,” Carlos promised, “I'd never leave you.”

It was a silly promise to make but Carlos wished he could keep it. He kept on kissing and caressing Cecil. After a while, he could feel Cecil wiggle around on his stomach and pull Carlos down on the mattress. Cecil ran his hands over Carlos' hair and sighed.

"You are too good for me, you just accept me like this," he said, dreamily.

"Yes," Carlos said and kissed Cecil's chin, "but then again, you are very easy to like."

"Why thank you, Mr Scientist," Cecil murmured and nuzzled against Carlos neck. Carlos smiled sleepily and yawned. Moments later they both fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, amazing that you read all the way to the end. If you liked it, press that kudos-button. That would be cool of you.


End file.
